Clockwork: violence

“Pete held his rookers and Georgie sort of hooked his rot wide open for him and Dim yanked out his false zoobies, upper and lower. the old veck began to make sort of chumbling shooms-’wuf waf wof’- so Georgie let go of holding his goobers apart and just let him have on in the toothless rot with his ringy fist, and that made the old veck start moaning a lot then, out comes the blood, my brothers, real beautiful.”(pg.7)

The violence in this novel really caught me off guard. The gang of four led by Alex, find their first victim of the night, an old man walking out the library with books. They circle the innocent man and after a bit of verbal harassment they proceed to savagely beat the old man. The gang's love of violence is shown as the narrater (Alex) comments on the beauty of how blood came out of his mouth. Anthony Burgess describes the beating of an oldman in horrific detail. This quote shows the readers a glimpse upon how violent the city youths have become and the problem this society is facing.